onsdag 31. juli 2013

Due to technical difficulties, my blog is currently in a doldrum. Consequently, I found it proper to put up this lovely poem by Robert Browning in order to keep up the frequency of posts (four a month as a minimum). It is not April, Eliot's cruellest month, nor am I abroad pining for my native home, yet I have recently felt a growing desire to see England again, and since Browning wrote this in Italy, where I've spent a week myself this summer, I thought it a thematic fit.

Home thoughts, from abroad

Oh, to be in England
Now that April's there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England—now!

And after April, when May follows,
And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!
Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
Blossoms and dewdrops—at the bent spray's edge—
That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture!
And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children's dower
—Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!

In the previous
blogpost I gave a very brief summary of the Conference for Medieval
and Renaissance Music held this year in Certaldo, July 4-7. Certaldo
claims to be the birthplace of Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-75), and I
believe it was for this reason it was chosen as the host of this
year's conference, seeing as this year is the 700th anniversary for
Boccaccio's birth. In this blogpost, therefore, I aim to show you how
great a star Boccaccio truly is in his alleged birthplace.

It
is, of course, no wonder that the Certaldese have pressed Giovanni
Boccaccio to their collective bosom. He is one of the major literary
figures in Italian and also world history, and his most famous work,
The Decameron, is one
of the most important pieces of secular literature to have come out
of the Middle Ages. Despite Boccaccio's great renown, however, there
are some important details missing from his biography, and
particularly his place of birth has been a matter of some contention.
Previously, there circulated a theory that his mother was French and
that he himself had been born in Paris. G. H. McWilliam, translator
of the Penguin Classics edition of The Decameron,
dismisses this idea in the introduction to his 1972 translation.

Paris being
discarded, there are currently two major candidates to the title of
Boccaccio's birthplace. One is Florence, the other is Certaldo, and
although McWilliams favours the former, the latter has spared no
enthusiasm in commemmorating their potential native son, as will soon
be quite evident. It should also be noted, however, that although
Certaldo may not be Boccaccio's birthplace, he did spend his last
thirteen years in this city, so their enthusiasm is not completely
misplaced should it turn out he was born in Florence.

Regardless of
precisely where Boccaccio entered this world, he was born of a
well-off family. His father was a Florentine merchant-banker from the
Compagnia dei Bardi, and in the mid-1320s Boccaccio was sent to
Naples to learn the basics of trade and commerce. His time in Naples,
and his mercantile background, can be seen reflected in several of
his stories, in particular the fifth story of the second day.
Eventually, it became clear that the young Tuscan was not cut out for
the banking business, and was turned to the study of canon law. This
attempt ended the same way as his banking career, and soon he
dedicated himself to literary pursuits. At this time, Naples was a
significant intellectual centre thanks to the court of King Robert of
Anjou, where Boccaccio gained entrance through his family
connections. His time in Naples was, in the words of G. H. McWilliam,
"crucial to the development of his artistic sensibility".

In
1341 Boccaccio returned to Florence where, according to his
introduction to The Decameron,
he witnessed the ravages of the plague. To what degree this is true
remains uncertain, and it may very well be that Boccaccio had himself
done what his literary figures would later do and fled the town.
Later, he was sent on several minor diplomatic missions, representing
the commune of Florence, and these missions took him both to the
Papal court of Avignon and Naples. He later settled in Certaldo,
where he is said to have contracted the plague and died.

Casa Boccaccio, Certaldo Alto

The
Certaldese take immense pride in their claim to fame in Italy's
literary history, and this is reflectd in the numerous venues named
after the great writer. The two most important and significant places
of interest for Boccaccio enthusiasts are located in the old city,
Certaldo Alto or High Certaldo, overlooking the river valley from its
plateau. Here, pilgrims will find the house in which Boccaccio lived,
Casa Boccaccio, a favourite motif for the local postcard industry,
which is now a museum open to the public, and where the book
presentations during the MedRen conference were held. Secondly, there
is the Church of Saints James and Philip, located by Via Boccaccio,
the main street of the old city, where the writer lies buried not far
from the local saint Blessed Giulia. To a medievalist like myself,
this is of course the two most tantalising targets for a literary
pilgrimage.

For those more
attentive to their stomachs than their minds, there are alternate
venues in which to commemmorate Giovanni Boccaccio, namely
restaurants and cafés, such as Bar Boccaccio or Enacoteca Boccaccio.

More venues of this
kind - heaped under the general umbrella of gusteria, or
pleasure - can be found in the new city, Certaldo Basso. Here is a
pizzeria and a gelateria named after the author, and also a theatre
of some kind, and of course, a white statue right outside the church
of St. Thomas the Apostle and close to the cable-car going up to
Certaldo Alto.

It was very clear
that the city was engaged in the seventh centennial of Boccaccio's
birth. Everywhere there were posters advertising a new play based on
the ten storytellers of The Decameron, and in a local pastry
shop this baked beauty could be found:

And what's more:
even in the tiniest minutiae of public life, a nod to the great
author could be spotted, such as this environmental advertisement
fastened to one of the public litter bins, ostensibly making a pun on
the Italian word boccaccia, which means grimace:

All in all, it is
very evident that the Certaldese take immense pride in their
connection with Giovanni Boccaccio, and that they exploit this aspect
of their history to full effect. In some respects there is something
charming and lovingly about this embrace, such as the statue in
Certaldo Basso and his monument in Chiesa di Sancti Jacopo e Filippo,
yet other nods are more clearly designed to draw a crowd rather than
being done out of any love for the author. This is of course
understandable, but it becomes wearisome in the end, and is a good
reason for spending most of the time in Certaldo Alto, where such
references are widespread but more natural.

søndag 14. juli 2013

The whole
company, ladies and gentlemen alike, were in favour of telling
stories.

- The Decameron,
Giovanni Boccaccio (translated by G. H. McWilliam)

Every year a large
group of musicologists gather for the Conference of Medieval and
Renaissance Music, both for the purpose of presenting new finds of
their own and to learn of new finds by fellow researchers. This group
encompasses both the very seasoned professors and the undergrad
neophyte, and the range of subjects being treated is delightfully
diverse. This year, for instance, there were papers on topics such as
the office for Saint Catherine, the liturgical programme of
Reconquista Spain, a song from the Cambridge Songs and late medieval English carols.

Via Boccaccio, from Palazzo Pretorio

The MedRen
conference was this year held in the Tuscan town of Certaldo,
allegedly the hometown of Giovanni Boccaccio, and my supervisor for
my Master's thesis invited me along to participate in a session
arranged by one of his colleagues. Naturally, I accepted the offer
gladly, and for a few days in the beginning of July I sauntered among
musicologists in the medieval old city of Certaldo Alto overlooking
the Tuscan denes and hills and soaked up knowledge.

The reason why I - a
mere historian - was invited to a conference for musicologists was as
follows. For my thesis I had looked at various texts for Edward the
Confessor, and in particular a set of liturgical texts contained in a
manuscript from the turn of the 14th century which had until then
been ignored by scholarship. In the course of my work I managed to
date one of these liturgial texts - an hexameter couplet - securely
to the timeframe 1161-66, and this was one of the major discoversies
of my research. The item in question belonged to the liturgical
repertoire of Matins - known as the historia or the part of
the liturgy recounting biographical details of the saint - and since
the session in Certaldo took the historia as its subject, I
was asked to contribute.

The conference
lasted four days was comprised of 52 sessions. Each session was about
90 minutes long, and four sessions ran parallel at their alloted
hours, with intermingled coffee breaks, lunches, book presentations
and concerts. I went to a number of these sessions, but I could only
manage two sessions a day since in many cases the papers given dealt
with details far too technical for me to grasp or follow at great
length. I felt very much like a fish out of water, but then again,
that was how evolution started, so I absorbed as much knowledge as I
could master and I did indeed learn a great deal. When I was not
listening to papers, I walked about the old medieval town in
exploration of its museums, churches, streets and gelaterias, or
socialised with fellow academics who, like me, had come to present
their findings. I met a great number of interesting people, and I
almost learned as much from these sociable chats as from the papers
themselves, and although I acknowledged the gap between their mastery
of the subject and my own feeble clutching at straws, I found it very
inspiring to be in the presence of such a great number of brilliant
people.

Palazzo Pretorio

The conference
headquarter was in the old pretorian palace, the seat of civic power
in the Middle Ages, and three of the four parallel sessions were held
here. The remaining session took place in the nearby Church of Saints
Thomas and Prospero, commonly referred to as the Chiesetta, or the
little church, and it was here I presented my paper at about half
past nine the fourth day of the conference. I was not particularly
nervous about the presentation, partly because I had already aqcuired
some conference experience in Oxford in May of this year, and partly
because in the preceding three days I had become well acquainted with
how these sessions worked.

Unfortunately, this
was the last day of the session, so some people were already leaving
town, while others were perhaps drawn more to the parallel sessions.
Whatever the reasons, the turnout was not great and I would have
liked a more numerous audience. Nonetheless, it was a good and
attentive crowd - with the exception of two rude cretins who walked
out in the middle of my paper (seriously, you don't do that) - and I
very much enjoyed presenting my findings.

The Chiesetta, dedicated to Saints Thomas and Prospero

The conference
experience was, in sum, a very encouraging experience, and it
reinforced my belief in the necessity of interdisciplinarity in
medieval studies, for although I am no musicologist I nonetheless
found it extremely rewarding to exchange experiences and knowledge
with the brilliant minds in the field of musicology, and I do hope
that the musicologists, too, will see the benefits in such an
exchange - which I'm confident that they will, because they are
brilliant.

onsdag 3. juli 2013

[He was] tall and
slim, wise, regal and his beard was white as milk, his skin roseate
and his face appeared satisfied.

- The Life of
Blessed Edward King and Confessor, Osbert of Clare (my translation)

The Wilton Diptych, from wikimedia commons

Recently, on one of
my favourite blogs, I read a wonderful little piece in
which Wytham Church of All Saints in Oxfordshire was presented. The current church was rebuilt to its
present appearance in the period 1811-12. On the inside it is
decorated with sculpture and stained glass from sundry epochs that
have been gleaned from various other venues. I was particularly
fascinated by two roundels with stained glass, and they led me to
write this present piece. The images are most courteously lent by A Clerk of Oxford.

14th-century saint ostensibly modelled on Anne of Bohemia, courtesy of A Clerk of Oxford

14th century saint ostensibly modelled on Richard II, courtesy of A Clerk of Oxford

According to the
church website and information made available at the church itself,
these two roundels date from the late 14th century, and they are said
to depict royal saints rather than contemporary historical figures.
Despite this claim, however, it is acknowledged that the two faces in
question bear resemblance to King Richard II and his wife Anne of
Bohemia. In this blogpost I will take this claim seriously and
compare this image of a saint looking like Richard II with other
contemporary representations of him.

Richard II died in
1400, about 33 years old, and depictions of him portray him often as
a young man. In the the Wilton Diptych, commissioned by the king and
executed in the mid-to-late 1390s, his youth appears almost
exaggerated considering he was nearing thirty by the time it was
ordered. It may, however, be that the image is meant to capture the
king's likeness in retrospect, depicting the accession to the throne
as a boy of 10 in 1377. This hypothesis is strengthened when we
compare the Wilton Diptych with the depiction of Richard in the Liber
Regalis - the book of the coronation order - from c.1382,
prepared for the accession of his wife Anne of Bohemia. Here we see
Richard's face adorned by the two wisps of beard, similar to the face
in the Wytham roundel.

Liber Regalis, c.1382, from wikimedia commons

By this time the
king was about 15 years old. It is tempting to say that the
illuminator of Liber Regalis has added some age to Richard's
appareance - perhaps to give him greater gravity - and thus gone the
opposite route of the makers of the later Wilton Diptych. This is,
however, mere speculation.

Despite the king's
aged countenance in Liber Regalis, several depictions from the
1390s portray Richard II as a young-faced monarch. First of all, we
see this in one of the most famous images of the king, showing
Richard seated on his throne in coronation regalia. This
panel-painting - allegedly the earliest portrait of an English
monarch - was made in the 1390s by an unknown master. Although the
coronation regalia suggest that this depiction, like the Wilton
Diptych, may be retrospective, it is interesting to note that two
such portraits came about in the 1390s.

Anonymous master, Richard II, from wikimedia commons

Another
depiction, however, suggests that the above image is not
retrospective but contemporary. The depiction in question is an
illumination from Philippe de Mézières' Epistre
au roi Richart, the letter to
king Richard, composed in Central France in 1395-1396. This book was
given as a token of friendship from the French king and his people,
and on the second folio we see an illumination showing Philippe de
Mézières handing his book to Richard II. The king is here depicted
as a young and clean-shaven man.

Philippe de Mézières presenting his book to Richard, MS. Royal 20 B VI, courtesy of British Library

The
last portrait of Richard II from his own lifetime to be presented
here, is the effigy made for his tomb in Westminster Abbey. Here we
find once more the king's characteristic wisps of beard issuing from
either side of his chin, though less profusely than in Liber
Regalis. The king's youth is
hard to detect in this effigy, but whether this is because age has
been added for gravity or whether he had aged significantly during
the times of civil unrest remains an open question. It may also,
however, have been that the artist making the effigy added years
because he did not expect the young king to depart very soon.

King
Richard II was deposed by Henry Bolingbroke in 1399 and died the year
after. Shortly after his death, the Book of the Capture and Death of
King Richard II - La Prinse et mort du roy Richart
- was prepared in Central France. The book came about in the timespan
c.1401-c.1405 and was written by Jean Creton. Here we see a number of
illuminations of Richard II, in all of which his wisps of beard are
depicted clearly, but these representations appears to add some age
to his features, though it is difficult to assess whether this is
actually the case, or - if it really is the case - whether this is
deliberate or not.

Richard II and the Duke of Northumberland, MS. Harley 1319, courtesy of British Library

Richard II disguised as a priest, MS. Harley 1319, courtesy of British Library

Richard the II and Bolingbroke, MS. Harley 1319, courtesy of British Library

Now
let us return to the Wytham roundels. From the images we have seen
depicting Richard II,we see there is a clear resemblance betweent
these and the face of Wytham, characterised first of all by the
easily recognisable beard. However, if we are to accept the claim
that this is not Richard but a saint made to resemble him, a very
interesting question naturally arises: which saint is this?

To my
mind, the most probable answer is St. Edward the Confessor (d. 1066,
c. 1161), whom Richard II adopted as his particular saint. Richard's
embrace of Edward the Confessor manifested itself in 1381 when the
king started to visit his tomb in times of trouble for solace and
counsel. Gradually, Richard's devotion to the Confessor became more
acute, and in 1390 he attended Prime, Vespers, Compline and Matins on
Edward's translatio,
and during Mass that day he wore his crown. Richard II also began
more and more to identify with, or at least emulate, Edward the
Confessor, and in the Wilton Diptych we see Richard presented to the
virgin by Edward, Edmund and John the Baptist. Furthermore, Richard
impaled his coat of arms with the arms of the Confessor, and although
this was not done publicly until 1397, we see this new heraldic
conflation on silverware items from before that year.

Katherine
J. Lewis has also suggested that following the death of Anne of
Bohemia in 1394, and prompted by his childlessness, Richard began to
emulate the Confessor's virginal virtue by presenting himself as a
virgin king.

If
the Wytham roundel is meant to depict St. Edward the Confessor, it is
therefore only natural that the depiction should be modelled on the
king who was his most eager devotee. This idea is particularly
tantalising when we consider that the glass was donated by the
Golafre family, who had served at Richard's court and must have been
familiar with his devotional tastes.

The
case for Edward the Confessor therefore fits well with both the times
and the religious climate at court. It is further supported by the
conflation of appearances executed in the roundel. The face has
Richard's characteristic beard, but it is given the whiteness of old,
sagacious age so common to the representations of Edward the
Confessor.

Whether
the roundel at Wytham does depict Edward the Confessor or not, may
probably never be properly answered. Nonetheless, the evidence in
favour of this proposition is considerable. It may be further
strengthened by the fact that a boss inside the church depict the
arms of the Confessor, but this may be a coincidence given the
compilatory nature of the decorations, or it may refer to the
University College of Oxford, which in modern times has adopted the
legendary arms of Edward the Confessor as its emblem. In any case, it
makes perfect sense if the donors of the glass modelled Edward the
Confessor's likeness on that of Richard II, resulting in perhaps the
most overt conflation of devoted and devotee in the history of
English royalty.

Arms of Edward the Confessor, courtesy of A Clerk of Oxford

References

Books

Binski,
Paul, Westminster Abbey and the
Plantagenets: kingship and the representation of power, 1200-1400,
Yale University Press, New Haven, 1995

Om meg

Norwegian medievalist, bibliophile, lover of art, music and food. This blog is a mixture of things personal and scholarly and it serves as a venue for me to share things I find interesting with likeminded people.